Counting cells - Week 4 at Duke

This is Jocelyn again from Duke University working on olfaction in mice. This is
my fourth week.
I thought the previous week was low key but this week topped that. The first two
days were spent genotyping new litters of pups from the animal house and other
analyses of microscope photos in ImageJ (and the help of Microsoft Excel).

For genotyping, Neha collected toe clips from the pups and we soaked the
templates in 100 micro liters of tail buffer and 10 micro liters of proteinase K
which breaks down the protein, and then put the tubes into the PCR machine. The
next day we took the tubes out and made a master mix (dNTP, forward and
reverse primers, 10x buffer and the diluted template). I ran 3 gels because there
were 27 tubes and each tube needed 4 (1 wt, 1 m, 2 wt, 2 m). 108 + 4 controls =
112 wells.

From Tuesday afternoon to Friday, Neha left for California, leaving me to code and
count positive cells in the InSitu photos. There were four folders of photos to
count. I created new excel files to record the numbers. I counted the positive cells
blindly which meant each photo had a randomized number so my results would
not be skewed. After all the counting, I recoded the photos to their genotype (WT
or M) and condition (Control or Test). The results are looking promising. Neha
said she'll take a look at them early next week.
I've started planning my presentation for the lab which I will be presenting on
Thursday before my last day on Friday. It has been such an awesome experience
working with Hiro, Neha, and the rest of the team. I wish I had photos to show
but I'll share them the last week!

- it seems like my entries are getting shorter and shorter every week.. hopefully my last entry will be more interesting!